Bob Barnard Track Engineering

A good friend, Allen Petrich, wrote a send up of the goings on in F1 like a French farce. As we say, who would believe it. Following my explanation of the rules for using the movable wings he added that we should make it a Monty Python script. We devise a movable wing to aid overtaking, the teams spend millions to put it on the car, and then we constrain its use inside painted boxes so overtaking is almost impossible. There are definitely mixed feeling about it and as Mike Gascoyne comments we would have missed that incredible race at Jarama when Villeneuve Senior held off all comers for the whole race. Yes we want overtaking, but not some video game, we want Hakkinen and Schumacher at Spa. Lewis says that the extra buttons will be more of a problem in practice and qualifying, when they have no restrictions on using it. That is really going to make qualifying a bit of a mystery for us spectators, almost like having qualifying engines again.

Hamilton also said he is not changing his driving style to suit different cars or tracks, this is who he is and that's how he is going to drive. Good on him, I for one enjoy watching him. Overtaking for Lewis and Kobayashi seems all too easy. Perhaps they could give lessons, or some "brave pills" for the others.  Lewis stirred the pot in Berlin when asked if he thought Schumacher would be better this year. He said he thought Michael would not be much different, but he was welcome to prove him wrong.

Bernie is apparently winging his way to Melbourne for the race this year with his daughters, girlfriend and entourage, to bring some "global prestige" to the event. If this is an unusual occurrence then it just shows how Bernie feels about the event.

Lotus, the green and yellow one, completed an untroubled private test yesterday at Valencia and ended up 18th and 20th on the time sheets in the 1 minute 15's. Not too bad, about two seconds off the quick times, so a big leap forward, and they say they had no time to set the car up. Glock in the Virgin was even faster, so just maybe we will see those teams up amongst the second tier this season. Will make for more interesting racing. Jerez will tell us more, I hope.

Nice to see young American Alexander Rossi moving up to FR3.5 with a top team, Fortec. He finished fifth at a one off outing in Monaco last year and has gone well in testing, so go get 'em Alexander. Bernie or Tavo should pay for a top notch publicist to get his name better known in the US. Then we might see the public wake up, like with Lance Armstrong.

Williams are to proceed with a stock flotation on the Frankfurt exchange. I think it was Joe Saward who suggested that this may not be such a good move. Stockholders care about returns, like CVC, and not results. I think the Washington Redskins are the most profitable NFL team, and this clearly is not related to on-field performance. Managing expectations could be a hard balancing act for Sir Frank.

So Mother Russia is taking a bigger role in Virgin. Ian Phillips comes in as COO and brings many years of experience with him, but the new Technical Director is Nikolay Fomenko, President of MaRussia, who has no experience, despite the claim that "MaRussia's wealth of knowledge and experience provide us with a solid foundation with which to enter the second season." Wealth of knowledge and experience? They were only formed in 2007 and most of us had never heard of them until they bought into Virgin. I've heard some spin, but this is a good one. Maybe I am missing something here, did Nikolay work in F1 before starting MaRussia?

So Melbourne GP has the Government's full support? As has been said before, that is sometimes the last sound anyone hears before being fired. I have questioned before the benefit to sponsors of being in Australia, and The Mayor of Melbourne might just have given Bernie the opening he wants. Bernie has also come out and said that having two races in Spain is a problem, so which one is going? Meanwhile the Indian GP is having further management changes as the head of the company promoting it has stepped down over corruption allegations. Don't you just love going to these new and exciting places?

The Renault exhaust is directed to come out in front of the sidepods to increase the airflow under the car to the single diffuser as I suggested, and apparently McLaren has a similar arrangement, with Mercedes considering it. This must take some plumbing to get it there. Does not seem to be doing Renault that much good in testing, but it is very early days. Force India are still sitting around the top of the timesheets with Di Resta and Hulkenburg third and fourth.

Over in Malaysia Danny Pedrosa laid down a lap two thirds of a second quicker than team mate, make that rival, Casey Stoner. Ben Spies was third fast amongst a gaggle of Hondas. Nicky Hayden and Rossi were 11th and 13th respectively, but not respectably, not even being the quickest Ducati's. It would seem that test times in the world of MotoGP are more representative of what to expect for the season than F1, or am I wrong?

Down in Sebring Audi have been testing both the R18 and the old R15, but no details seem to have emerged. Anyone out there get a whiff of times or other goings on?

On a serious note our thoughts go out to my Australian mates who are suffering through Cyclone Yasi, and my American ones who are experiencing blizzards and freezing rain. It froze overnight here in Phoenix and will be colder tonight, but nothing to compare with these problems.

Strange doings at the Rolex qualifying at Daytona yesterday. The Ferrari 430 entered by Aten, my mate Tony Dowe, was withdrawn by the "owner" at the last minute. Which begs the question, what else are you going to do with it? Put it in a museum? Why spend all last year building this, and rebuilding it after the fire at the "Roar" test weekend, and then decide not to race it? No one seems to know who the owner is, except presumably Tony. To add to the mystery the car seemed to do two laps in the last session, albeit very slowly, according to the timing and scoring. Was this on the truck on the way out? What are we missing here?

Jorg Bergmeister in the Flying Lizards Porsche Riley captured the Daytona Prototype pole position in a triumphant return to Grand Am for the successful ALMS GT2 team, with Dominik Farnbacher taking the GT pole with one of the TRG Porsches. Race starts Saturday at 3:30 pm EST live on Speed, for most of it anyway.

In other things that make you wonder, Oz GP Boss, Ron Walker, has warned of Australia losing the race because there are lots of other countries wanting a race. Really? Ron mentions Russia and India as two, who as far as I know already have one, keep up Ron, and Warsaw. Warsaw? We've had a lot of countries suggested, but perhaps Ron has an inside line to Bernie. Then there are Qatar, Dubhai and Kuwait, which are now the center of the F1 universe, we could run the whole series there, the World Cup are going to Qatar after all, and that old chestnut, Staten Island. ISC tried that one Ron, and see how long that lasted. Sometimes you have to wonder which world Ron is living in. A friend who worked for him on the Melbourne GP told me some weird stories.

Bernie of course has told the Mayor of Melbourne that there is no problem handing the race back, just call his office and work out the details. The penalty more like. This is all good fun isn't it? First the ASN, CAMS, say they are going to take it off the calendar because they are not getting enough of the payout from the race, sorry I mean the "profit," and the Premier of South Australia has to chime in with how Melbourne have screwed it up. Eh? Weren't they the ones who screwed it up enough that Bernie went to Melbourne in the first place? Most people think Australia is one country when it is actually a collection of States each with a direct line to The Queen, and who loosely agreed to work together at the start of the last century. They could not even agree then about where the capital should be so they had to build a new one, Canberra, in the middle of nowhere, and get an American to design it. When I worked for the South Australian Commissioner of Highways we were arguing about what color the lines should be down the center of the road! So you can see how they will all squabble over almost anything.

The new F150 Ferrari was unveiled today, the first of this year's cars, and to an untrained eye it does not look unlike last year's. But that is what the Designer said himself, but then said it wasn't. I guess the designers are so prescribed now it is hard to make the car look much different. Of course there is the disclaimer that the car that hits the track in Bahrain will look very different. So why "launch" it? I thought the front wing was supposed to be narrower and simpler this year, does not look it. Apparently the rear suspension is very trick, but it is hard to see from the photos.

Luca di Montezemolo is still sounding off about how F1 needs to stay the technology leader and decries that aerodynamics are over emphasized compared to the mechanics of the car. Keep pushing Luca, someone has to, until you go off to run Italy that is. It is suggested that naming the car the F150 in honor of the years since Italy was created from a number of States, sound familiar, is a political ploy to promote Luca's strong feelings for his Country.

Now this has nothing to do with motor racing, not directly anyway,but an item on AOL news struck my fancy. Fitness pioneer Jack LaLanne passed away at the ripe old age of 96. Great you think. Well from what I've seen here in the US Jack failed miserably. And on a personal note, my Father never worked out a day in his life apart from the odd game of tennis, smoked until he was 55, drank and put more salt on his food than anyone I have seen, and died at 97. So, all you fitness fanatics, relax. It's all in the genes it seems.

So, talking of active old men, the Bernie bribery scandal will not go away, not that I expected it to. I think someone is out to nail Bernie in this. Stern, the German news magazine that just loves this stuff, says it has a letter that shows Bernie paid the bribe. I don't think it does. It is supposedly a letter from a lawyer on behalf of Gribkowsky asking for the balance of the money, $2.3m. That is a bit different to a check stub from Bernie's bank, and who are the sources that said Bernie was outraged at receiving the letter? All the people close enough to Bernie to know that have been with him forever because they are loyal and keep their mouth shut. And maybe Bernie was outraged because he never paid the bribe in the first place? Stern are going to keep digging and it seems in this day and age almost anything is discoverable. The question remains, if they can prove he did it, what then? Do the German authorities act? Is the original deal reversible? Would Bernie go to jail? This has the potential of shaking the current F1 foundations. Or is it another "Hitler's Diary?" Wasn't Stern involved in that little fraud?

Just after the Korean GP boss is let go the Indian GP boss, Mark Hughes, has left "for personal reasons." Always a nice euphemism that. Meanwhile the Australian GP boss, Ron Walker has hit back at the Mayor of Melbourne saying that the GP is a "huge profit" for the city and the State. Unfortunately for Ron the State Premier is suggesting he would not mind if they did not have to pay quite so much for all this "profit."

The "will the real Lotus please stand up" court case started today, so much for settling it out of court. It is only a preliminary hearing so this farce seems likely to drag on all year.

All of Audi's drivers from last years 1-2-3 finish at Le Mans have re-signed for 2011, and why wouldn't they after that performance?

Only three days to the start of practice for the Rolex, and a week till F1 testing kicks off. It's nearly over.

So the Mayor of Melbourne thinks the "Times Up" for the F1GP and said "I know of no city that has voluntarily walked away from a grand prix, but could Melbourne be the first?" Well I guess there has to be a first. I'm sure quite a few GP promoters now feel that they have given Bernie and CVC enough. Look at Turkey, Spa, France has actually given up, and at the recent Forum in Cologne the Malaysians said they had achieved what they set out to do, now they need to make some money. We had the recent reports on Valencia perhaps not wanting to go on, and Hockenheim has stopped, so perhaps Melbourne is not the first? Even Singapore, Bernie's jewel, is saying they are going to examine the benefits closely before renewing. Are we going to see some common sense appear? I doubt it, there are always more suckers lining up to donate to the CVC fund.

Melbourne provides an interesting insight into how the costs have escalated. When they started in 1996 the race was underwritten to the tune of $1.7m, and last year cost $50m, with a forecast of $70m in years to come. This cannot all be due to sponsorship dropping. There is a pattern here, Adelaide lost the race to Melbourne when the people and politicians tired of the cost and inconvenience.